Wind Energy Institute of Canada

As well as being green, wind energy is one of the cheapest ways of generating electricity and it is currently the most common generating technology for new installations in Canada. Wind farm owners, however, are finding that key turbine components, such as the generators and gearboxes, can fail long before the 20 year lifetime that is normally assumed. This project will develop methods to use the outcomes of monitoring those components to develop techniques to improve the detection of component faults and allow better and cheaper scheduling of maintenance.

The Wind Energy Institute of Canada has installed a large-scale wind power and energy storage systems. The institutes goal is to investigate the wind integration techniques and to increase understanding of the industry for energy storage systems. The objective of this project is to demonstrate and evaluate the capability of energy storage system for shifting wind energy over time and providing ancillary services. Multiple functions of energy storage systems can bring more value to them and justify their high capital costs.